The Poetical Works of Alexander Pope, vol 1 | Page 8

1734 appeared the fourth part of
the "Essay on Man," and the Second Satire of the Second Book of
Horace. In 1735 were issued his "Characters of Women: An Epistle to a
Lady" (Martha Blount). In this appears his famous character of
Atossa--the Duchess of Marlborough. It is said--we fear too truly--that

these lines being shewn to her Grace, as a character of the Duchess of
Buckingham, she recognised in them her own likeness, and bribed Pope
with a thousand pounds to suppress it. He did so religiously--as long as
she was alive--and then published it! In the same year he printed a
second volume of his "Miscellaneous Works," in folio and quarto,
uniform with the "Iliad" and "Odyssey," including a versification of the
Satires of Donne; also, anonymously, a production disgraceful to his
memory, entitled, "Sober Advice from Horace to the Young Gentlemen
about Town," in which he commits many gross indecorums of language,
and annexes the name of the great Bentley to several indecent notes. It
is said that Bentley, when he read the pamphlet, cried, "'Tis an
impudent dog, but I talked against his Homer, and the portentous cub
never forgives."
The "Essay on Man" and the "Moral Epistles" were designed to be parts
of a great system of ethics, which Pope had long revolved in his mind,
and wished to incarnate in poetry. At this time occurred the strange,
mysterious circumstances connected with the publication of his letters.
It seems that, in 1729, Pope had recalled from his correspondents the
letters he had written them, of many of which he had kept no copies.
He was induced to this by the fact, that after Henry Cromwell's death,
his mistress, Mrs Thomas, who was in indigent circumstances, had sold
the letters which had passed between Pope and her keeper, to Curll the
bookseller, who had published them without scruple. When Pope
obtained his correspondence, he, according to his own statement,
burned a great many and laid past the others, after having had a copy of
them taken, and deposited in Lord Oxford's library. And his charge
against Curll was, that he obtained surreptitiously some of these letters,
and published them without Pope's consent. But, ere we come to the
circumstances of the publication, several other things require to be
noticed. In 1733, Curll, anxious to publish a Life of Pope, advertised
for information; and, in consequence, one P.T., who professed to be an
old friend of Pope's and his father's, wrote Curll a letter, giving an
account of Pope's ancestry, which tallied exactly with what Pope
himself, in a note to one of his poems, furnished the following year.
P.T., in a second letter, offered to the publisher a large collection of
Pope's letters, and inclosed a copy of an advertisement he had drawn

out to be published by Curll. Strange as it seems, Curll took no notice
of the proposal till 1735, when, having accidentally turned up a copy of
P.T.'s advertisement, he sent it to Pope, with a letter requesting an
interview, and mentioning that he had some papers of P.T.'s in
reference to his family history, which he would shew him. Pope replied
by three advertisements in the papers, denying all knowledge of P.T. or
his collection of letters or MSS. P.T. then wrote Curll that he had
printed the letters at his own expense, seeking a sum of money for them,
and appointing an interview at a tavern to shew him the sheets. This
was countermanded the next day, P.T. professing to be afraid of Pope
and his "bravoes," although how Pope was to know of this meeting was,
according to Curll, "the cream of the jest."
Soon after, a round, fat man, with a clergyman's gown and a barrister's
band, called on Curll, at ten o'clock at night. He said his name was
Smith, that he was a cousin of P.T.'s, and shewed the book in sheets,
along with about a dozen of the original letters. After a good deal of
negotiation with this personage, Curll obtained fifty copies of P.T.'s
printed copies, and issued a flaming advertisement announcing the
publication of Pope's letters for thirty years, and stating that the original
MSS. were lying at his shop, and might be seen by any who
chose,--although not a single MS. seems to have been delivered. Smith,
the day that the advertisement appeared, handed over, for a sum of
money, about three hundred volumes to Curll. But as in the
advertisement it was stated that various letters of lords were included,
and as there is a law amongst regulations of the Upper House that no
peer's letters can be published without his consent, at the instance of the
Earl of Jersey, and in consequence, too, of an advertisement of Pope's,
the books were seized, and